Ever since Legal Insurrection broke the story that NY-23 Democratic challenger Martha Robertson sent a fundraising email claiming that “GOP Ops” had been “caught” trying to take down her website, Robertson has been on the defensive.

Tompkins County Council Chairwoman Martha Robertson, a Democrat challenging GOP Rep. Tom Reed in New York’s 23rd District, called the recent brouhaha over an alleged hacking of her campaign website “a distraction” from the race in an interview with CQ Roll Call earlier this month.

Republicans have been pressuring Robertson to provide proof that GOP operatives attempted to hack her campaign website. Robertson made that claim in a Sept. 30 fundraising email.

“We’re working to hire a cyber-security firm to take a serious look at that and investigate everything that happened. Beyond that it’s really better to leave it up to them,” Robertson said. “At the end of the day I think … it’s beyond a distraction. [Voters] are concerned about their pocketbook issues — whether or not their Social Security and Medicare payments are going to be there as they depend on them.”

New York’s 23rd District is rated a Lean Republican contest by Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call.

Robertson’s statement that the campaign is hiring a cybersecurity firm to investigate is an implicit admission that she still does not have any proof to back up her fundraising claim that GOP operatives were caught trying to take down her website.

We had asked the Robertson campaign to make its server logs available to us for review, but received no response.

The Robertson campaign needs to come clean and admit that it made up the fundraising allegation, or present the proof.

Until then, the issue will not go away, as the headline of the Roll Call article demonstrates:

We will continue to follow whether Robertson actually hires a cybersecurity firm, and what they find.

Comments

Robertson said: “At the end of the day I think … it’s beyond a distraction. [Voters] are concerned about their pocketbook issues — whether or not their Social Security and Medicare payments are going to be there as they depend on them.”

This is why anyone who relies upon government is going to be disappointed. I am planning my retirement assuming NO medicare or Social Security. That way, if things don’t pan out with those entitlements, I won’t be left holding the bag.

Weird. All you do is make up a story about bogeyman Right-wingers trying to hack your campaign site, and then it’s like you killed a bunch of babies or something… I mean come on!

This is indeed a total distraction from the real issues of the Right hating women, ethnic miorities, being Nazis, and standing against our boss and Light-bringer’s transformational agendas!

And you should be ashamed of yourselves for bringing up this good and honest woman’s perfectly innocent attempts to raise money by showing, oh, well… at least baselessly accusing with the basic truth that the Right are all mean, hateful cheaters that must be targets, locked in and taken care of by any means and at any cost. ANY COST!

I mean let’s stick to the issues and stay awy from elimationist and violent rhetoric. Okay?

We’ve come to a pretty pass when making up lies out of whole cloth is a mere “distraction.” Nor is this the first time, Robertson has engaged in such conduct. She took Chairperson’s pay in the Tompkins County Legislature from Jan. 1 to Jan. 17, 2012, when she had not yet been elected by the Legislature to that office. Getting paid before you are elected is a rather strange concept. The Democrats obsession with the 23rd is not district wide, it is out of Ithaca where “progressives” believe they own the seat. The district is R+4, about the margin Reed won it by so Ithacans should get used to the idea that they will not control this seat in this 11 county R+4 district.

Perhaps the entire solicitation for contributions was a test by those within “Emily’s List” to rate Martha on how far she is willing to concede any premise of ethics for the line of the party. They already knew she had a track record but needed to see if she was ready for the big time. I have to assume by the stonewalling, she has past mustard and stands to receive more focused outside contributions.